Incunabulum
by ElectricViola
Summary: It is in Athens, in the time of the old Gods and obscure rituals, that I have been assigned a mission. I am to be the centerpiece of an obscene ceremony that few women would ever wish to be burdened with, and that fewer yet have walked away from unscathed physically and mentally. My name is Rey. This is my story.
1. Open Your Eyes

**A/N hey guys! So this is the first story I'm posting here-please do let me know what you think! I have so much planned for this story, and just a warning: it's not for happy people. And remember, all sorts of creators live and breathe for comments and feedback (at least this one does)! Please enjoy.**

They had prepared me for this. They had. But for some things, there is no preparation; only the precipitous leap that leads to the main event.

I had been legally an adult for a while when I was recruited for this. It was a stroke of bad luck that the last vessel was now out of commission around the same time I was deemed sufficiently mature, but not too old, to be presented before the Oracle, the one who maintained the divine connection between the Council and the Gods.

There I stood, half dressed with a group of unmarried females that varied from very young ages to quite mature and sagging states. The old crone had singled me out of the bunch at once, pointing at me with her bony fingers to come closer.

It is not my intention to be vain, but I know fully well why I was picked—I was small and dainty, long and brown-haired and pretty. Easily handled, and easy for men to use as a receptacle for their seed.

Everything was frighteningly clear to me. My role in this, the aim of the Council, the endless challenges I would face… If only I could go back to my days of youthful ignorance. How ideal everything was to me! There was only one last thing that confounded me to no end; it was how my own parents could sell me out the way they did, at the drop of a few mere sanctimonious words, the gift of some coins, and the name of the Gods and nation.

The Holy Vessel... as if. I was a whore.

The week preceding the opening ceremony had been a tumultuous one, with the family shop being overrun by overeager customers who gathered provisions for the winter coming fast on us. The actual day of the ceremony had been equally horrible. It was cold and damp out. The preparations were torture; the water they used to scrub every inch of my body was scalding, standing in the sun at midday in the sweltering heat—because of course it would get warm all of a sudden, when I needed it not to be—as they styled my hair on the balcony was sheer torture. If I could, I would mock the entire pre-ceremonial preparations, right before the Council. It was as if they believed men needed any sort of encouragement to inflame their passion…

They put me in a cold room at the top of a building meant only for the highest order of ceremonies. It was my first time in this establishment; everything was so modern here that I could not help but gape—the high walls built out of fine stone, the elaborate bed with the delicately woven linens, the golden chandeliers that cast everything in what I might have considered a romantic light, if it were not for these obscene plans built around using my body.

It was as large and intimidating as it was awe-inspiring. It was a small mercy that the Council had allowed my mother in with me, even if she was only to remain for a short while. But it was a good thing as well; I doubt many offsprings would be happy letting their parents watch them doing that.

Her time was quickly approaching. She hadn't been a particularly soothing presence with her coolness and functional affections, but she was better than nothing. She was to leave ten minutes before the ninth hour. My heart felt more and more imbalanced every time I glanced at the clock, because time seemed to be flying by.

"Mother," I said in a voice that bordered on frightened whimpering.

"You'll be alright, my love," said my mother with no feeling and perfunctory stroke to my head. "Just don't forget why you are here." I wanted to frown at her. She could seem so unfeeling when she was afraid.

Yes, certainly, I should relax by remembering that my sole purpose here is to have a child put in me by a group of strange men. "I wish you could stay, Mother," I said instead of the number of profanities I wanted to hurl at her. I meant it. No matter how aloof she could be, she was my mother; my only anchor to safety and sanity. She smiled at me as she would on any other day.

I began hoping she would leave. I glanced at the dial on the stone wall; there was little time left to the arrival of the men.

One of the attendants, who will remain outside the room to supervise the men from a distance (along with a tall, broad guard in armour full with the helmet that covered his entire face) when the ritual begins, brought forth a tray, with linens, a bowl of some clear, thick substance and a plain golden mask.

She dipped her fingers in the strange jelly, and kneeling before me, she made to lift my toga. I jerked away.

My mother tsked at me, shaking her head as if to tell me to hold still. The woman looked at me impatiently. "This is to ease your pain," she explained, "and to rouse the pleasure of men."

"The pleasure of men," I echoed with a sneer. "Of course. By all means, help yourself; they need all the help they can get." The woman shot her a reproachful look before approaching again.

"Rey!" chastised my mother.

Her cold fingers moved under my heavy ceremonial skirts, and shifted aside my smallclothes. My cheeks warmed as she worked between my thighs. Her fingers were so meticulous that I had to bite my lips and squeeze my eyes to keep from shuffling away. She rose back to her feet, and I was a little disappointed by how straight she kept her face. She must have been quite used to doing this.

My mother adjusted my mask over my face. She asked me if I would be more comfortable lying down; no, I most certainly would not. When I did not answer, her hand came to stroke my face; I knocked it away and left her to stand on the bannister.

The woman I now knew to be one of my chief handlers entered and announced the imminent arrival of the men. With a flurry of blessings and reassurances that I could barely register in my chaotic state, my mother left. "Remember, Rey; our family depends on this."

"Yes, Mother. I will do my duty."

I ruminated on those words during the ten minutes of silence that followed. Was it really so? Did my family depend on how well I pleased a group of men?

I swayed back and forth on the bannister, purely to entertain and give myself something to do. And then I looked down.

My heart leapt in my throat at the distance I saw between where I was and the next landing. That was when it hit me, just how easy it would be to jump.

You may think I am being dramatic; but I assure you, you do not know what it is to be torn so morbidly between the need to preserve myself in my eyes, and obscenely curious about what would happen in the evening, that you feel that death would be a kinder fate than the wait in this lonely chamber.

It was when I looked further down onto the next landing that I realised my fantasy to end my life was just that; a fantasy. There were guards up here on my ledge. They looked at me sideways with the insipid expressions of men to whom this has become routine. They could be upon me before I got a single foot up on the bannister.

This realisation made everything come crashing down. My heart plummeted all at once. I was not original, or special. I was just the pretty new whore for the Athens Stud Services to use for appeasing the Council and the Gods. Who knew what brutes I would be served to!

"Your visitors are here," the woman said. I was so startled by her appearance that I gasped, my hand flying to my throat. I snapped around, and my gaze fell on with tall men. Already I could feel my elaborate and flimsily styled hair starting to come loose. The night hadn't even begun, and I'd already embarrassed myself and helped my hair come undone with my lack of composure.

There were supposed to be several of them. This night, I counted two. Both wore masks, as decreed by the rules of this ancient rite set by the Council.

One had red hair, and he held himself in such a stiff way with his neck craned and nose in the air that I was almost convinced his spine would snap if ever someone bumped into him. His mask was fashioned in the shape of a fox. I will call him Orange.

And then there was the other one. He was tall, and dark, and while they were both silent, I could tell from his posture that he was habitually a very quiet man. Befittingly, his mask was blank, a pure black lined only with silver trimmings around the eyes. Stygian black… I'll call him Styx.

Their silence had a forbidding effect on the room; even my handler's warm presence was not enough to counteract their cool aloofness.

I stood awkwardly, unsure how to greet them. My hands were balled tightly by my side; honest to the Gods, I wanted nothing more than to bolt out of the room, even if it was by the window all the way down to the next landing.

"Hello." I inhaled sharply. That was Styx—I knew because Orange nodded in greeting, almost imperceptibly, a moment later. His deep, soft voice was intimidating… and it fit the name I gave him so well that I couldn't help a small smile of satisfaction. I hoped, however, that he wouldn't live up to the reputation of his new namesake, what with all that height and bulk.

"Hello." My own voice was barely a whisper.

We stood in the awkward silence. They didn't tell me what do. They didn't tell me anything. What was I supposed to do?

"If the vessel would lie down," said my handler ever so helpfully. "we could carry on."

"Yes," I whispered as I shuffled to the bed stiffly, trying my best to keep my head up.

Once I was on the bed, lying in the position of a dead person with my arms crossed over my chest and my face turned up at the ceiling, my handler bowed out. "I shall leave you gentlemen to it."

My blood was ringing in my ears. My cheeks were suffused with heat that was becoming unbearable inside the stifling mask.

Sandals shuffled on the floor, and the mixture of anxiety and curiousity that had been eating my mind all along came back full force.

Instinctively I angled my head forward to look at them. It was a mistake; I started to hyperventilate. They had their heads close together—they were discussing something about me. They were both so tall and broad—they could do anything to me. I could never stop them. The handler and the tall guard with the full helmet outside may not hear me if I scream. They could do anything.

A whimper escaped me, and I hated myself for being so weak and transparent.

"Just take it easy…" he trailed off, as if unsure what to call me. "Lady," he finished.

"Uh... would you like to remove your underclothes yourself, or..."

"Or?" I echoed. "Oh!" He was asking for permission. "Umm, I'll-I'm-it's fine, I'll do it." I sat up, ready to remove them, but I couldn't bring my hands to even lift my skirts.

"Actually, could I just keep it on? Could you just… leave them on?"

"As you wish," he almost sighed at length. He was going to join me on the bed. I had to stall him—in that moment, that was all I knew in the world.

"Ummm… actually…"

"Yes," he said, understanding at once as he helped me slide it off. I shivered as his large, warm hands slid up my toga to grab the edges of my underwear and tugged it down.

He straightened, and stood there awkwardly until his companion clicked his tongue. From the corner of my eyes I saw him cross his arms.

"Uh… Could you move up?"

"On the bed? Yes, can you just…" I trailed off as he followed me on the bed, pushing my knees apart.

"I'm—you'll have to open your legs," he said. His hand was apologetically posed on my thigh, but it was just nerve-wracking.

I kept shoving my skirts down without realising it. He was starting to grow irate, I could feel it in the way his hands got jauntier and they worked on me and moved the pillows around on the bed.

"Could you just… we can keep our masks on, right?" I asked.

"We have to," he responded quietly. His hand inched up my thigh,

"Can we blow the candles out?" I pleaded as I moved back on the bed when his touch grew to be too much to handle for me in my precarious state.

He looked straight at me "You know what?" he snapped as he grabbed me by the waist, suddenly out of patience. "We're doing this my way, or not at all. Let's see how your family likes displeasing the Council."

I gasped at the sudden venom, and again when he dragged me off and towards him until my legs were entirely off the bed. When I resisted him by pushing at his chest, he gathered my wrists in one hand and pinned them up over my head. He kicked my knees apart with one shove from his own knee, and before I knew what had happened, he was standing between my thighs. My hands shot down, easily making him release his grip to grab his biceps.

He reached for the back of my leg, and hitched it up high on his waist so our hips snugly fit together. "Oh, Gods," I exclaimed when I realised how aroused he was as my nails threatened to break his skin. My mind was racing—was this how it was supposed to be? It seemed to be so large, perhaps that wasn't it.

He didn't seem to care. He was grinding up against me, head thrown back. His neck was exposed, but still there was something reserved and stilted about the way he pleasured himself against me. I thought this may have had something to do with the presence of his friend.

My head fell sideways, my gaze straight on Orange. He was studying his nails.

The dark haired one was undoing the belt of his toga, and I renewed my struggles. He paused just long enough to hold my chin—as well as he could through the mask—and to give my neck a short, jaunty stroke. "Just relax, okay?" he rumbled.

"This is going to hurt, but you need to keep calm or it will be worse for you," he warned. But somehow I knew his words did not come from malice, so they worked. I kept myself calm.

He snapped the heavy skirts back. I felt something hot and hard prod at my entrance.

He entered me with an excruciating slowness that clearly took his entire resolve, if the way his hands shook on my thighs were any indication. I heard him sigh in relief just as I gave a low, strangled keen of protest. I couldn't even muffle myself with my hands through the bloody mask. I suppose I should be grateful that at least, the men did not try to undress me fully, down to my bare breasts. He only pushed my skirt up to do what we came here to get done. And Orange didn't really care anyway.

It wasn't so bad, after all, I thought. Maybe I could take it until these men got me with child, which hopefully shouldn't be long.

The feeling of fullness… and completion, somehow. But it was then that I realised he was nowhere near fully inside me. He was just holding himself there because he knew it would pain me less this way.

"Fuck—you're too tight," he grunted out as he did his best to push in without hurting me. It was hurting him too, for some reason.

The groan that escaped him when he pushed all the way inside me sent a strange pang coursing through my body. It wasn't quite so pleasurable, or even painful, so much as it was uncomfortable more than anything else—like scrubbing a nail file between my legs

"Let me know when I can move," he rasped. His voice was doing strange things to me; the more I heard from him, the less invasion his erection felt inside me, and I wanted him to continue.

"It's alright," I assured him. "Do what you need to do."

His hips pulled back, and he slowly thrust back into me. The pain was consuming, but so was the need to hear him voice his pleasure. He did it again, and again, going faster and harder every time. I was gripping the sheets hard to keep my pain to myself.

Soon he was driving into me so hard and fast that I had to bite my lips to keep from crying out, even though whimpers and sobs still escaped me. He was touching me softly in other places, such as my arm, or the back of my neck, and that seemed to help me stay clear of the pain, and even put me in a sort of trance in which only he, I, and his cock existed. It wasn't terrible anymore, not when he soothed me this way…

He leaned forward until our chests touched, and that made my high all the more intense. I decided to ignore Orange, ignore the world, and hold onto those broad shoulders and run my fingers in that thick, glossy hair.

He gave a sound halfway between a groan and a hum when I touched him, and he buried his face in my neck as if to kiss me… but then he remembered there was a mask.

He removed it. It clinked when he set it hard on the side table. My interest was piqued; I was desperate to see the face of the man who was fucking me like he owned me, but also I did not want to know. I needed him to remain anonymous, so I could hate him. At any rate, it was not like I could just look at his face, since he was so careful about keeping it buried in the pillow, or in my neck, or in my chest.

"Ah, you're getting wet," he whispered in my ear, and I inhaled in this strange sensation I was learning to recognise as pleasure.

I felt his breath on my neck, the ghost of his lips, and immediately that indescribable something flared inside me—the effect was the same as with his withheld groans, but stronger. All of a sudden, I needed more contact. I craved it. I needed more of him. As if reading my mind, his palm pressed against my breast, and I startled at first but it was perfect for a moment—

And it was lost all at once when he bucked into me harder than ever and with a series of intense, low hisses, he stopped moving and gave a series of full-body spasms that worried me—I thought I'd killed him somehow, and this was his dying struggle. But then I remembered what I had been taught. This was his climax. It looked more painful and pleasurable, with the way his muscular body pulled taut under my hands and jerked, and how he groaned as if his soul were being torn out of him. But even in something so painful looking, I found myself gasping in how satisfying it felt to make man feel this way.

He recovered sufficiently to remove himself from inside me. I begged him to do it gently—for some reason it felt more uncomfortable than anything else he had done. Before he moved again, he donned his mask.

As he rose off of me, he straightened my skirts with one quick tug, and moved to fix his own clothes. His hair was ruffled, his mask sat askew on his face. And he was looking at me. At the end of it all, I lost my nerve, and fixed my gaze on the ceiling.

"Are you alright?" he asked, still panting.

I did not answer because I simply had no will to. Everything felt so surreal.

"Hey? … girl? What do I call her," he added under his breath, almost to himself.

"I think you overdid it," said another voice casually when I refused to respond. It was Orange—this was the first time I was hearing him speak. I would have been surprised by his voice, masculine and surprisingly cool for his wiry figure and unusual colouring.

"Silence, you."

"Can we go?" he asked. "Hey." I realised he was talking to me. "Did the lady lieutenant tell you when we could go?"

My nose prickled. I tried to answer his question. What lady lieutenant? but the moment I opened my mouth, the tears came flooding. Of course, I could not remove my mask, so I could not wipe away my tears, or the snot, nor could I cover my mouth to muffle my pathetic sobs. I sat on the edge of the bed, and buried my masked face lying sideways into the sheets.

"I think we should go." Hiccups and sobs wracked my body.

"Yes, we should go," hurried to say Styx. "Uh—we'll see you."

I thought I saw an apologetic wave from Styx, but I was too busy wiping away the snot after tearing my mask off to make sense of anything.

The stickiness between my legs came with a bout of realisation that made me stop crying quite abruptly. I was a real woman now. I had had a man inside me, finally, and I had given him pleasure. He had taken his pleasure from my body.

It was when they put me in the bath that I understood what to do with this information. I leaned back, and allowed myself to imagine that it had gone differently—that my visitors were handsome young men who cared about me and my pleasure, and to that thought I rubbed the spot between my thighs harder and harder until it became unbearable and I had to pinch my breasts to keep riding the waves of pleasure.

Afterwards, I imagined it was all the work of the man who stripped me of my innocence.

It was a strange feeling, but I couldn't help looking forward to the next time I saw that strange black haired man who was both so considerate and inconsiderate, patient and quick to lose his temper, revolting and appealing…


	2. Stasis

**A/N I'm back with a new chapter! Hope you like, please do leave me your thoughts, negative or positive ^.^ I would love to know what you think!**

I floated about the bathtub for a while longer. It was a luxury we could not afford in our household, the large, private bathtub with hot water that would scald if it were not so relaxing. We had to visit the shared baths at the end of our street if we wanted something larger than a pail for washing cloth and dish.

This is rather a delayed revelation, but I feel the need to clarify something in case there was any ambiguity; I had very little experience in any of this, both the ritual and the act itself. I have never known a man, and I cannot read well enough to study these strange traditions. I could not even say what the deciding factor was for the Council to pick a day for the ritual. I waited around the house for some days before I was summoned once more for an interview of sorts to decide when I would appear next for the men.

I was taken to a large hall. The room itself was ornate, decorated with elaborate false ceilings and elegant tiles... But the furnishing was Spartan as can get; the table was nothing but wood on legs, as were the chairs, and the room was bare of anything else. Since the building was a donation, I decided that the Council truly must have been as ascetic as it claimed to be.

There were short pleasantries before they cut into the heart of the matter.

"How are you, my dear?" the stubby, wizened man seated in the middle of the table.

"I'm fine, thank you," I said. My voice barely rose above a whisper. Everything felt awkward and stilted to me, mostly because I was worried that they would start asking questions I was not sure I was ready to answer… but they were so relaxed. I could see one member of the table studying his pen. Another one was close to yawning. The other two had their eyes trained on me; and they were the ones who put me so on edge.

"Our lieutenant said you were quite upset during the last session," he said in a leading tone, as if wanting me to explain.

"Um—I'm well and truly sorry, my lord." What else was there to say? What could I explain to this rich old man who knew nothing about what I was being forced to go through?

"After the first… you wept?" he said with a twist of his brow.

"Yes." If I said any more, I felt my tight throat would give, and I would cry before these four fools and make an idiot of myself.

"Why was that?"

"What difference does it make?" I said, my voice suddenly gaining the edge that simmered underneath all along. No, it seems I was mistaken—that tight ball in my throat had not been sorrow. It was anger. And it was starting to get away from me.

"The difference, my dear, is made in that that you did not fulfil your task." The way that the edge in his voice matched mine, if not more so, made my tail come down from its fluff, and I was left at a loss for words.

"Luke," admonished softly the only woman in the middle.

"I…" I started uncertainly, not fully daring to interrupt that charged look between them.

"It is understandable that you must have been too distracted to notice… but there were _two_ men in there. f we were not in the midst of a war, there would be even more. Not only one... We do not have that luxury. You must remember that! There is a reason that it has been decreed that more than one man must—"

" _Luke,"_ said the woman again. "Look at the poor thing," she added in low voice, probably thinking that the acoustics in the room weren't quite what they were… But I heard it all, of course.

"She must know," he whispered back.

"She must nothing," she said with great emphasis. "Just _look_ at her...!"

"Are these arguments quite common among the Council of the Resistance?" I asked, my courage suddenly rising in the face of their strife.

"Whatever you may think, dear Rey," the master started with low, ominous tones, "the Council is dedicated to the safety and well-being of all members of the state."

"After careful consideration, we have decided that the next meeting will be tonight.

"Tonight!" I exclaimed without thinking.

His eyes flashed as he assessed me. "Yes, tonight," he said slowly. "Unless you have something more important to do, Your Highness?"

The lady on the board unmistakably rolled her eyes, ever so subtly. But I caught it anyway.

"You may go, my dear," she said with a smile that seemed forced. But I knew her displeasure wasn't aimed at me, somehow.

"Don't forget your purpose here," said the only man who spoke as I left. "And remember there will be consequences, both for us as servants of the Gods, and for you as their Holy Vessel... Gods forbid you forget, because we will regret it all." I made it a point to keep my head up. My resolve vanished halfway through the marketplace; I had to sit down on the nearest steps and keep the heels of my palms pressed hard to my eyes to keep the tears in.

It was such a short notice, but my mother didn't seem surprised when I told her. Luckily the preparations were nothing like what they were the first time; in fact, they were non-existent. I reported quite late in the afternoon to the building—I was hoping to forego the preparations from last time, but I defeated myself because as it turned out, there was no such thing after the first encounter, and I had in fact arrived far too early. I had no choice but to wait around… and filch the fruits. Which again turned out to be defeating only myself, because they were complimentary.

I was quite irate with the Council's negligence to let me know. But perhaps it was my own fault, since I should have asked when exactly I was to come in…?

There was only the bath to scrub me clean of dirt. I asked for it to be drawn early for me—I enjoyed the water, and the rare solitude I could get in this building at that. My hair was kept loose and flowing in its natural state; it would have been cause for worry otherwise, but being brown, medium length, and wavy, there was no danger of my getting recognised in the sea of common and generally indistinguishable hair.

The lieutenant bowed to me as I entered the hall that led to my chamber of torture. I was mortified by the honour—bowing to me, the daughter of a shop-owner! At once I told him there should be no need to bow to me, and if anything, I should be paying him respect. When I received an answer, I was twice mortified.

"You are a sweet girl," said a female voice.

"You're a woman!" I exclaimed without thinking, and immediately bit my tongue to keep myself from allowing my mouth to put out another ridiculous sottise.

Thankfully, my lack of grace did not startle her. She chuckled, and bent her head in acquiescence.

As I waited in the chambers—fuck-chambers, fuck-room, come-site, fornication-spot, I called it in my mind, looking for more combinations to amuse myself—I wondered about the lady lieutenant. Because of her height and broad structure, I had assumed her to be a man. But in my mind, as soon as I saw her as female, she was suddenly less threatening—soon I was making her out to be my best and only friend in here. She was the one engaged to judge the situation—immediately I decided that I had to remain on her good side, for my own well-being. That way, she would like me, and be less likely to be negligent in case something went wrong…

My handler came in to rub the lubricant between my thighs, and while I attempted to ignore the feeling of her fingers working between my legs, my mind turned to what the man had said during the Council meeting _. If we were not in the midst of a war, there would be even more._ How many more, exactly?

If it were even possible, I was more nervous than the last time. Because this time there would be no space for mistakes; I have to hold it together until the second one came inside me, or there would be consequences.

My heart jumped in my throat when my handler appeared to announce the arrival of the men.

It was the same old two that walked in, and I thanked my stars. Unlike last time, I made every effort to put forward the best impression for myself. They greeted me in their terse ways, I bowed courteously. They stood awkwardly, as if afraid of crossing a line, and I led them to the bed. Well… Just one. Not bold enough to take his hand, I sat on the edge of the bed, and beckoned him over with a soft invitation. "Will you join me?" I felt like I was going to choke, but when he moved towards me it was like falling and flying at the same time.

He laid me back on the bed with a soft push to my collar. My head fell back—I didn't have the strength to watch what he does, but I heard him unbuckle his belt, and when I felt the bed dip under his weight I gasped despite myself, covering my eyes with my arms. I wondered what Orange was doing…

"Just relax," he whispered, just like last time. I felt his fingers flutter about my thighs, and perhaps he wanted to touch my cunt… and I allowed that strange desire to grip me once more. But just as my muscles jumped under the ticklish feeling, he removed his hand. I felt so cold in that moment.

I felt the bed dip again, this time on my side, as his arm held him up to keep his weight from crashing down on me.

He pulled my arm away from my eyes, and I wished he had not because I could now see him on top of me. He was a large man—impossibly tall, I had to recognise that, and he had the sort of shoulders you could build a house on. I should be afraid of him. I would be—perhaps I was, but I was suppressing my emotions so well that I felt nothing. In fact, I was riding them; it wasn't difficult to enjoy the demeaning ritual, as disgusted as I was with myself for even thinking that. Everything about this quiet and mysterious man was especially intriguing, and that gave way only to a smouldering feeling in the pit of my belly… with the dark hair and the silvery black mask…

I was lost in my daydreaming. I was startled out of it when he didn't ask before yanking off my panties. His hand simply reached up my skirts, and removed them with two swift tugs.

The cold air hit the wet heat between my thighs.

There was suddenly a lot of movement above me. With a short hiss, his arms started moving in a repetitive motion. He was breathing hard already.

I hung on to his neck, very shyly at first; I found it difficult to search for an appropriate place to keep my hands. Slowly, ever so slowly, so he had the chance to object if this made him uncomfortable, my hands slid down, over the hard planes of his chest.

He didn't seem to mind at all. I heard him exhale—it made me flush, and emboldened my movements. He was grinding against me, his growing erection rubbish against my cunt until I was arching and softly sighing wordlessly, begging him to rub harder so I could feel _something._

I must have grown too loud. I thought it annoyed him.

I got the briefest flash of his cock, ready and red, but before I could think further on it I could feel its heat on my oversensitised entrance.

"Easy…" he whispered as he pushed into me slowly, almost as carefully as the first time.

I cried out when he pushed in fully. He huffed in my ear, and I got the feeling that was desperate to touch me.

He fucked me into the bed. He was considerate at first, but when I wouldn't complain he rode me hard, hitching my legs up on waist until I was crying out, unable to formulate word, because if I did, I would curse and rave and beg him to touch me so I could join him in his pleasure.

I wanted to kick myself for the disappointment I felt when he did not remove his mask, even when he drove into me so hard I had to dig my fingers into the pillow.

 _Stupid Rey._

Soon he was grunting with every thrust. He drove into me so hard that I was pushed all the way to the headboard in a short while. I hissed when my head clanged against it, stunning me for a moment.

"Sorry," he muttered before pulling me back down and locking my legs around him so I would stop travelling on the bed under his punishing shoves.

"Ah…" I whispered, when he started to fuck me with this new angle. It made some part of him rub against the entrance of my cunt, and it felt _good._ Something was building inside me. It was a spark, yes, it was a fiery heat just like last time—

"Gods!" he rumbled as his head bent into the pillow, and he moaned as if the soul were being torn out of him.

With a harsh grunt he came, and it was like a jet of liquid heat inside me. I arched up in response, stiffening harder as his arms curled my back while he caught his breath with jerks of his body and short grunts that sent electric buzzes through my body every time.

He removed himself from inside me, and I sighed at the sensation of feeling like a woman… But then the second man approached as the dark-haired one turned around to fix his clothes.

Feeling any relief was a mistake; this was far from over.


	3. The Blight

**A/N Hello again, please enjoy this update! as always, i would love to hear what you think, positive or negative!**

Orange tilted his head, his eyes running up and down my body as he appraised me. I wasn't sure what he thought of me… but the scrutiny brought back to me the selection process in a flash, how I ended up here.

It hadn't even been a month, but still it felt like ages had passed since then. Dressed in meagre in the cooling autumn air, being paraded in front of an old woman who probably couldn't see a foot ahead of her. I hated myself for being so uncharitable to an old woman… how bitter I had become in my thoughts since I had been thrown into this! I remember her pointing her finger at me, curling it to beckon me over, and I want to bend over and let the blood flow back into my head. I think of her hands on my breasts, cupping and measuring to see if I was as good a fit as she thought, and I am ready to vomit.

I can still hear her voice, the ancient grating of stone against stone. "This is the one," she said with a toothless smile.

From the Oracle I was taken straight to an antechamber, where I met with the seniormost members of the Council—the very same who presided over all subsequent meetings. Clearly this was a matter of great importance to them, if they took the time out to meet with a common merchant's daughter.

I had been out the entire day, I was hungry and tired. I remember feeling close to fainting when I got home late in the evening, and found my mother going about the chores. Same routine, same life. But everything was different now. I didn't know how to tell her. I hoped the plea in my eyes would be sufficient… and it was, once I burst into tears and spend the night with my head on her knees.

I wondered what people would think of me if any of them had an inkling of my burden… or worse, of the strange, heated summersaults my stomach did when I tried to picture how it would feel, this horrifying ritual.

It's almost a knee-jerk reaction now—think of one, and the other tags along. In my mind both are linked now, the disgust and the want. I tried my best to suppress any positive feelings at once. But it was still difficult, keeping my fingers from rubbing circles around the heat between my thighs to kindle that strange heat, to keep my moans to a minimum in the tight quarters I shared with my parents and brother as I arched my back against the shots of pleasure that ran over me as I imagined a group of faceless men spilling their seed inside me.

What if people knew, I asked myself over and over again. They look down upon me. I really would go from the Vessel to the Whore. I had to keep it to myself. I had to make myself feel the disgust, let it show on my face and in my body, and not to let the men who would breed me know that I how direly I had been looking forward to them thrusts inside me with vivid curiosity.

But this was Athens. The richest, vilest, most beautiful, pious, and decadent city the world had ever known. In truth, I was probably overthinking. Nobody would care what I thought, and if I joined in the carnal pleasure of my own volition, as long as I did my job right and got one of the selected men and not another to get me with child.

I was pulled out of my reverie by the slick sound of him touching himself. I felt the need to look, but I also knew that if I did I might never recover for some reason. I didn't want to see. My eyes fell on Styx. He had an almost boyish air, relaxing on the bench like he wasn't attending an indecent fuckfest. I hated him for ignoring the gravity of the situation.

"Stay still," warned Orange suddenly as he positioned me over the bed in a way that won't force him to touch me. "And don't make a sound."

He slammed himself into me. I couldn't help the gasp that escaped me. He was obviously large; it seemed to sear my cunt. It did hurt when he pumped into me with no consideration. But… did I want him to stop?

"Oh Gods, please…" The desire to cry and plead for him to stop was… superficial. I wanted to cry and plead to protect my honour and my decency, yes, but I did not want him to stop. His movements had a different quality to them, and it made me curious about what was in store for me with the others… I decided to ride it out, just for the sake of feeling this new thing I was discovering.

After a while of awkward, silent thrusting, his arms buckled. Suddenly his stomach, or some part of him, was rubbing up the top of my entrance. The fire burned in the pit of my belly. I grasped for it; I wanted to possess it. I wanted it to wash over me. I closed my eyes, and pictured someone with the physique of Styx, and gentle hands that would—

He grunted. My eyes flew open; he had interrupted my fantasy. I wished I could hit him for doing this to me… But I thought his grunt sounded more like a whimper, and suddenly I was angry.

"Can you stop squirming, please?" he snapped. "I'm too uncomfortable..." At once I felt I was being overshadowed; he was not allowed to be the one expressing discomfort here. With his pained face, he was robbing me of my sadness because in that moment, I almost pitied him more than I pitied myself.

"You're uncomfortable?" I said, incredulous.

"You're so stiff, it's putting me on edge," he snapped. "Just let me get this over with. Then we can both go home. Hopefully."

I cursed him in my mind, the bastard, but I tried as best as I could to let my muscles relax so he could finish already… as much as I had questioned the early attempts of the Council to arouse the men through her hairstyle, perfumes, and clothes, I was beginning to think their efforts did have some factual basis for consideration.

He hummed, his hands latching onto the pillow as his head rolled back. The spasms were weak compared to that of the larger black haired man, and very short in duration. I was entirely unsatisfied, not just in a sexual way, but in the sense of being left unfulfilled in some… connection. Something I couldn't explain, something I had with the first one.

I had a connection with the tall, black haired man… I didn't know a lot of things, but my instincts were good, and that much I was sure of, even after only two sessions.

"There we go," he said in relief, fastening his black robes without looking away from me. "Satisfied, Ren?"

Ren. I latched onto that name like a lifeline. He is Ren.

Ren hummed in agreement. He rose without looking at me, and bent his head close to his friend to discuss something without looking at me.

I was so exhausted all of a sudden. A cramp bloomed in my neck, and something strained in my thigh. I stopped paying attention to them. I looked forward to my bath, and to my time alone back in my room. Ren... I wondered who he was.

They were talking, now. Something about the others, too much for her, running low on patience, waste of time. I frankly didn't really care. I couldn't wait to get to the bath. Vaguely I heard someone ask me something. When I looked up, the black haired one was looking at me, as if expecting an answer.

It suited him, I thought.

At least there were no tears. There was only bleak acceptance. I thanked the stars for my mask as I back on the bed, too spent to care what they saw of me as I remained motionless.

"Sorry?" I said, begging for him to repeat.

"I said, are you alright?"

"I'm fine, thank you." I did wish he hadn't asked. It was making me feel like it would be acceptable not to be; and the last council meeting confirmed that it was anything but.

"Go ahead," he said to his companion as he motioned with his head. "I'll see you at the base." Orange snickered as he straightened his black toga huffily. Throwing on his cloak on his way out, he left without another word.

"Alright," Ren said to me. "It's just us now."

"What do you want?" I couldn't help myself. I propped myself up on my elbows. This episode had been too intoxicating. To have to men inside me, pumping until they were twitching and spurting their slick wetness in me, had an effect on me that allowed me to be free with my words.

"I just want to help you," he said. When I didn't respond, suspiciously watching him, he sighed. "You must understand something," he said. "I know you've been taking it very well. You're very brave. Believe me, please, when I say that we don't want to do this either. But there are others, it isn't just the two of us. And I know one of them—he is a notoriously loose canon. I don't presume to know you, but you'll have to be strong. You'll have to take care of yourself, physically mentally. For everyone's sanity, I hope this will be over soon."

He was being kind. But I resented him so much. He wasn't the one suffering. Why on earth did he care so much to tell me all that?

I didn't know what to say, so I nodded. His voice was so soft when he spoke again. I thought I might have melted under the sheer gentleness in it.

"What's your name?"

My voice may have as well been sandpaper, by comparison. "We're not supposed to say."

"Well, what should I call you?" he touched my brow. I tore away from him—when he dropped his arms slowly back to the bed, I regretted it immediately. His warm hands...

"Call me whatever you like."

"Alright," he said after a brief pause. A part of me wished he caught on to my solemn tone, and pushed harder... "We'll see you later then. Take care of yourself."

Was that his way of being kind to me, these perfunctory questions, and that cold warning? My mind was racing. Why was he being so nice? His friend certainly didn't seem to approve, with the way he snickered on his way out… I pondered on this for a long time as I sat in the bath. The women came in to scrub me clean of the sweat of sex, strain, and exertion, but I hardly felt their hands. Who was that black haired man who had been selected to fuck me?

I was summoned for a council meeting the day after. Same story; the only man who spoke and the only lady on the board came close to an argument while the other two all but slept with their eyes open, they took an assessment of my mood, how I felt in general, my bodily functions. And once again, they finished with giving me the shortest possible notice; I was to meet the men the same night. They really were determined to ruin my family business. Well, I had made up my mind to meet them, insult for insult. I took my sweet time, dawdling as much as I possibly could with the children on the street, taking the longest route I knew, and then doubling back halfway only to turn around again.

The group of my handlers more than made up for my lateness when they collectively scrubbed me down in double time. Successfully went sour my petty victory.

But this was a large building, full of mysterious rooms and large halls full of pretty things. I was still quite happy wasting my time in here. It was the lady lieutenant who came to find me while I closely studied an expensive-looking vase while perversely wondering what would happen if they were to find it shattered into a thousand pieces. She seemed quite tense with my running around, but as she escorted me back I explained that I got lost, I gave her a smile before fixing on my mask, and when she gave me a soft half-laugh and a short pat on the head I knew all was forgiven.

"I am late!" I announced proudly as I burst into the room. Five heads masked heads turned to stare at me. It took me beat to register what was happening, and into the roof of my mouth my heart went.

"What an astute observation," said Ginger.


End file.
